Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains, photographed Wednesday at the Knitting Factory. / Tony Contini/Special to the RGJ

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Alice in Chains photo gallery

Alice in Chains helped prove to a capacity crowd at the Knitting Factory on Wednesday night that its brand of 1990s metal was some of the most vital of the modern age and that the songs still hold up well today.

Following almost a decade of inactivity surrounding the decline and 2002 death of singer Layne Staley, Seattle's Alice in Chains re-emerged quietly in 2006 with new singer William DuVall, who stepped in to fill the guitar and uniquely demonic vocal parts nicely.

In its hour-and-50-minute show, the band deftly played through some of the highlights from all of its albums and EPs, including a good dose of songs from its new album, its first of original material since 1995. But the set missed a few of its best-known songs. Fans appeared to love it, though, flashing seas of devil horns and singing along to dark-toned rockers. Depending on where you were in the room, your ears may have also received a rather large sonic blast. Sound near the front was quite loud, but halfway back in the room and beyond, the sound seemed just right, and earplugs were unnecessary.

The band opened the show with "All Secrets Known," the lead track from its 2009 album, "Black Gives Way to Blue." The slow-burning song is pretty much an explanation of how the band chose to continue without its co-frontman, Layne Staley. As the band ripped through some of its other favorites, including "Again," "Them Bones" and "We Die Young," nobody in the audience seemed to care that there was a new singer at center stage half the time.

After all, it's the other founding member of the band, Jerry Cantrell, who played guitar on, sang the other half of those chilling harmonies and wrote the majority of the band's songs. And he's still alive and touring. If you closed your eyes and listened, you wouldn't know that Staley wasn't on stage, because DuVall has proven himself to be a seamless fit for the band. It also works because Staley alone didn't define Alice in Chains.

At times the concert did seem to drag a bit, as the set seemed to favor some deeper, older album tracks, including "Down in a Hole," "Sick Man" and "Rain When I Die," at the expense of better-known favorites like "Heaven Beside You," "No Excuses" and "I Stay Away," which were not played. The band did trot out "Would" and "Rooster" for the encore, however.

And, overall, it was nice to see one of the original bands of dark-minded hard rock up on stage tearing it up, rather than copycat bands like Staind, Godsmack and Puddle of Mudd, who moved in on the Alice in Chains formula when that band fell silent.

Belgian opener Creature With the Atom Brain delivered a decent opening set, a 30-minute collection of a faster and less gloomy brand of hard rock songs. Creature's new album, "Transylvania," was released last week.